The Effect of Nutrition on Egg Shell Quality

Achieving high levels of shell quality in pheasant and partridge breeders is critical to breeding success. Shell quality is influenced by many factors, but nutrition has an important role to play and Sportsman breeder feeds have been designed to optimise shell quality.

If shell quality is poor, egg strength will be reduced and the eggs will be more likely to crack. This leads to a reduction in the numbers of settable eggs, and if any cracked eggs are set, their hatchability and resulting chick quality will be poor. However, if shell strength is too high, then hatchability can be reduced because the chick finds it difficult to break through the shell at hatching.

Calcium is particularly important and Sportsman breeder feeds contain the correct level and source for best results - too little calcium and shell quality is reduced, but too much calcium will lead to egg strength being too high, and excess calcium in the feed compared to the bird’s requirements is excreted. A coarser form of limestone is used to aid calcium absorption from the feed. It is not necessary to feed additional sources of calcium to the birds.

Phosphorus is also important. A reasonable level of phosphorus is required to safeguard bone strength in the day old chick, but too much phosphorus will reduce shell quality and also add significantly to feed cost. The breeder feed must contain an appropriate balance of calcium to phosphorus for good egg production and quality.

Vitamin D has a crucial influence on shell quality, interacting with the metabolism of calcium and phosphorus in the bird. Sportsman feeds contain the highest levels which are permitted legally. Furthermore, a proportion of the vitamin D is provided as HyD, a more available form of this vitamin.

Shell quality is also influenced by egg weight and Sportsman feeds are specified to support high levels of production with optimum egg size. Protein levels and amino acid balance are critical in this area - protein is made up of different amino acids and maintaining the correct balance between them is important. Linoleic acid (a component of fats and oils) also has an important influence on egg size and hatchability.

You can be sure that specifications of Sportsman breeder feeds have been set to optimise shell quality.

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John Round

Nutrition

John was born in Worcestershire and has always had a great interest in the countryside. After leaving school, John studied Agricultural Science at the University of Oxford where he specialised in animal physiology and biochemistry, animal production and crop production. He was also Captain of the University’s (victorious) Ploughing Team!

Since then John has worked in the animal feed industry in a wide variety of nutritional and technical roles encompassing R+D, feed specifications and formulations, feeding programmes, legislation, raw material evaluation and customer technical support. John is currently a Senior Poultry Nutritionist in ABN where he is responsible for the management and development of the nutritional specifications of Sportsman feeds, and has been involved with the range since its inception more than 30 years ago.

Outside of work John’s main interest is music. He is a keen amateur musician, playing the clarinet and church organ. He also likes walking and is an active member of his local church in Northamptonshire where he lives with his wife and family.